Sitting around, getting bored. At the most unexpected moment, the muses came and posessed my man.
He and I.
Our difficult child…
•February 26, 2008 • Leave a Comment
Some of you may have gotten an e-mail from Morgan today in which he says that PLH won “Best Director in the category,” but what PLH actually won is “Best First Feature Award.” But it’s worth adding that the competition was large, there were 26 films submitted for this category. So, our baby did good… surprisingly…
(scroll down for links)
Your smarts will feed people – literally.
•November 10, 2007 • Leave a CommentWhat is FreeRice?
Free Rice is a website that has two goals in mind, both are noble; one is to provide fun and easy way to learn new English vocabulary, and the second is to feed the hungry.
The game is simple. For every correct answer you earn ten grains of rice. When you give a wrong answer you play on and the system adjusts to you giving you a simpler word. For each guessed word you get a more difficult one next time. You never lose your earned rice, you can play as long or as short as you want to.
Who pays for the donated rice?
The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom of your vocabulary screen. This is regular advertising for these companies, but it is also something more. Through their advertising at FreeRice, these companies support both learning (free vocabulary for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry). We commend these companies for their participation at FreeRice.
FreeRice began on 7 October 2007.
At the time of posting of this there were 1,072,025,720 grains of rice donated.
Visit FreeRice.com
Top of the class in England – but Polish boy goes home for better education
•November 10, 2007 • Leave a CommentWhen Aleksander Kucharski arrived in Britain from Poland, he expected he would get a first-class education.
He was accepted at a Roman Catholic state school which boasts one of the best academic records in the country and is recognised by Ofsted as outstanding.
But after two years he is so disillusioned that he has gone home to his old school, saying his British classmates were interested only in shopping and partying.
Disillusioned: 16-year-old Aleksander Kucharski has gone back to Poland for his education after two years in an English school
“I was treading water within the British education system,” said 16-year-old Aleksander.
“The boys were childish, they didn’t read papers and weren’t interested in anything.
“And the girls only talked about shopping and what they were going to do on Friday night.
“In Poland you have to know the names of all countries, even the rivers. But in England hardly anyone could place Kenya or Poland on the map. The teachers didn’t test knowledge, only effort.”
Aleksander started at St Thomas More High School in North Shields, North Tyneside, after his parents, who are both doctors, came to England.
In June he informed his mother Anja, a psychiatrist, and father Robert, a medical consultant, that he was returning home to continue his schooling.
While they remained here, Aleksander went back to Lodz in Poland, where he has moved in with his grandmother and enrolled at III Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace, a state school.
Although he received glowing praise from his Tyneside teachers, Aleksander claims he was being held back by other pupils, whom he accused of having no interest in learning new things.
He said: “Here in Lodz I go to debates, I talk about films and I try to persuade people not to use plastic bags. During the elections here we posted flyers for my neighbour who was out campaigning.
“But in Newcastle no one cared about globalisation, the greenhouse effect, the EU, war or politics.
“Maybe it’s because they get everything on a plate, because there was no communism there and there’s no real poverty, they don’t need to worry about their future.
“In Poland parents tell their children about financial problems. But in Britain I think they don’t have them or they tried to hide them, to buy their children everything.”
Aleksander said that before he left Poland he was an average student.
“In Poland, I only ever got average marks in maths, yet in the UK teachers said I was a genius,” he claimed yesterday. “After a year I was top of the class in everything, and that includes English.”
The excellent facilities at St Thomas More failed to improve educational standards there, he said.
“They would give me a list of terms and definitions. The teacher told us to put them into pairs and colour them the right colour – like at primary school.”
Last night, the deputy head of his school in Lodz, Agata Jagielska, said: “We know that Polish pupils are better at acquiring facts and knowledge.
“Perhaps because we are poorer and we don’t have such great facilities in Poland, pupils are more motivated to seek out possibilities for themselves.”
St Thomas More is one of the best performing schools in the country. A total of 1,700 students aged between 11 and 18 attend the school which was established in 1988 following amalgamation and has won several national awards for excellence.
A spokesman for North Tyneside Council said: “Every child and parent has the right to choose the education they wish.
“We are disappointed that this pupil has decided to move away.
“Only weeks ago St Thomas More was recognised by Ofsted as being an outstanding school with 82 per cent of students achieving five or more A*-C grades. Among those, 16 came out with nine or more A*-A grades.”
Good schooling: a Polish classroom where education standards are high
Full article at Dailymail.co.uk
Modest Mouse @ McCarren Pool, September 9, 2007
•September 9, 2007 • Leave a CommentA friend of mine invited me out. We don’t get to hang much, and I just came back from Europe after a month’s vacation, so I agreed. I wasn’t suspicious as to why he wouldn’t tell me where we’re going, because this individual is just that kind of a guy whose answer to anything about him is “fine,” “ok,” or the equivalent of those. So I wasn’t even asking and played along. But as we took a train (with my assistance, as to which train runs where when) we ended up in Brooklyn, in Greenpoint to be precise. While he said he liked Żywiec, I did not believe he liked it that much, that he needed to drink Polish beer in a Polish neighborhood. After a semilong walk we ended up in a pool, McCareen Pool…
Trip to Poland, August 2007
•August 27, 2007 • Leave a CommentIt is rather self-explanatory. This is the shideshow from my latest trip to Poland, to eastern Poland, to be more precise. I had the time of my life! There is nothing like family and friends who genuinely love you for who you are.
Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in Denver in Pepsi Arena, August 18, 2006
•August 23, 2006 • Leave a CommentSo yeah, they will play in New York [sort of] in October. Even twice. Two days in a row. But I searched for tickets as soon as they hit the paid fan club presale and ended up purchasing two seats in Pepsi Arena in Denver, Colorado and one seat on Jet Blue jet.
In theory this was about doing something only slightly out of character and connecting it with hearing “Don’t Forget Me” live. And I’ve never been to Denver before.
In practice I got more than I bargained for. The concert was rewarding in more ways than one, The suspense before them coming out. The noise that Mars Volta “performed” made me doubt the acoustics of the arena. Thank smart people for noise isolating earbuds! And then clean set up for the Chilis. Marshalls on the right and left. Pedestal for drummer Chad a.k.a. Will Farrell look-a-like. Mikes for Anthony and his “support” and pedals for John.
They started with “Can’t Stop” and didn’t till jammin’ encore when Anthony and Chad left John and Flea to their own devices – their best devices: Fender Strat and Jazz Bass respectively. The setlist was diversified, long and good. “Don’t Forget Me” alone was one of the prettiest renditions I ever heard. The outro especially. Chad had the same “suit” as in the famous Slane Castle concert in 2003 and John had what seemed to be the same pants too, minus the blue cowboy shirt. Hmm, maybe I’m making too much of this. The crowd was neat, at least in my section. An older, but not old, bleach blonde woman who came with a partner, supposedly flashed the crowd while I was in the bathroom, where I found a cellphone of overly excited airhead. Some older guy, he could have grandchildren, who came with a wife, I’m guessing, was smoking pot so much throughout the concert that I’m not sure if I was not high; I was very happy and smiling. Or maybe it was the music. Well, the concert was an experience.
Denver was great too. I did get caught in the rain in the open streets and walked into a souvenir store which was closed for lunch or something, yet not locked from the street side and open for anyone to come in, like me, and empty it out. I almost missed my flight because of a bag left with an Asian guy who ran a bag check store and who I convinced also to keep an eye for my rose plant [!] which was explicitly against the rules, as pointed out by him on a hanging sign, and who I made wait for me for over and hour after his work hours at the airport. And I dropped too much cash in Virgin Megastore, but aw well. At least I walked out with a new copy of “By the Way”, which cost me zero dollars. Deals in Denver? Priceless.
The city is pretty, colorful, and regardless of the unreal amount of homeless on the streets it was clean and I felt safe. It doesn’t feel rushed like New York but doesn’t compensate with a small town feel. Maybe a perfect combination. Maybe I was there too briefly and wanted to spend there every minute with reception of everything in as much positive manner as possible.
However it is, the view of the Rocky Mountains at sunset made all come to pieces. The view beats any fun at the beach. I wish I had there the time to go hiking in the mountains. The prairie dogs said good bye and I was on the plane to New York.
These pics are from the concert. There’s so much one can do with a crappy camera.
Cracow more attractive than Paris or Prague.
•August 3, 2006 • Leave a CommentFor those who don’t know, Cracow, or Kraków in polish, is by many considered to be the cultural capital of Poland. It was named one of European Cities of Culture in 2000 by UNESCO, and this year the magazine Travel and Leasure ranked Kraków to be one of the most atractive cities in Europe. It closes the top five just after Florence, Rome, Venice and Istanbul and ahead of Paris and Prague.
Get the top ten here and get a taste of the beauty hidden within the unsuspecting part of Europe. Enjoy! It truly is a magnificent city.
